The proposal would allow cities with populations below 25,000 to add up to 75 acres and cities with larger populations to add up to 150 acres. The Portland metro area would be capped at 900 total acres. At least 30% of the homes added would need to remain affordable for at least 60 years. The League of Oregon Cities supports the concept, said Ariel Nelson, the league’s lobbyist on housing and land use, but it wants more attention to details. “The current UGB expansion or adjustment process at the state is too cumbersome, too time-consuming and expensive to be responsive to our current housing crisis,” she said. Cities in the Portland region are skeptical about the proposal, said Anneliese Koehler, state and regional affairs “This opportunity, if every city in the state takes advantage of it, could produce 150,000 units.” - Deborah Flagan, council member and vice president of community engagement at Hayden Homes
adviser for Metro. Instead of adding land on the outskirts of city boundaries, cities in the region need more support to redevelop and fill in vacant lots, she said. “Metro continues to struggle to understand why this concept is needed in our region,” Koehler said. “Specifically, our understanding of the intent of this bill is to offer opportunities to increase land supply for housing production. While I cannot speak for other areas of the state, raw land supply is not the crux of the Metro region’s housing supply crisis. We have thousands of acres of buildable land inside our UGB.” Corie Harlan, the cities and towns manager for Central Oregon LandWatch, said the Bend-based environmental organization had deep concerns about expediting the urban growth boundary expansion process. Central Oregon LandWatch was the main opponent to Bend’s attempt to grow by about 8,000 acres in 2008. It took almost another decade for the city to win state approval for a more modest 2,000-acre addition. “First and foremost, UGB expansions must be based on a demonstrated need,” Harlan said. “And this recommendation undermines this reasonable, necessary and core tenet of our land use system that is at the heart of
Oregon’s livability.” Read more HERE. n
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October 2023 | The Business Review
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